Biggest suicide attack in Kashmir kills 42 Indian soldiers

February 14, 2019 | Brainwave Science

SITUATION

42 personnel of the Indian security forces have been killed in the biggest suicide attack in the Northern state of Jammu and Kashmir. This is the worst such attack in two decades of Kashmir conflict. The suspected attacker, a 20-year-old rebel, Adil Dar, from Pulwama in southern Kashmir, rammed his car which was laden with explosives into a bus which was a part of a convoy transporting paramilitary troopers in Pulwama district on Thursday. 42 paramilitary personnel were confirmed dead in the attack and over a dozen were wounded. Car bomb attacks are rare in Kashmir.

The official said buses carrying the paramilitary troopers were returning in a convoy to Srinagar when an SUV rammed into one of the buses. “The attack happened late afternoon on Thursday. The wounded were shifted to hospitals.” the official said. Images from the site of the blast showed a bus completely burned as dozens of bodies lay scattered on the highway.

“There were arms and hands lying all over. I even saw the brain that had come out of a trooper’s body,” a witness told Al Jazeera.

Security forces have sealed the entire area and internet services have been suspended in south Kashmir. Media reporters have been barred from visiting the blast site.

A Pakistan based rebel group, Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM), has claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement to a local news agency. India‘s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has condemned the attack.

The attacker, Dar reportedly joined the rebels in March last year when he was still in high school. JeM released a video following the attack, in which Dar purportedly said, “By the time this video reaches you, I will be in heaven. This is my last message for the people of Kashmir.”

A Kashmiri local who was standing at a distance from the site of the Thursday blast said it felt like an earthquake

CHALLENGE

Most of the “fidayeen” attacks have been carried out by foreign attackers affiliated with two Pakistan-based outfits, JeM and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). The suicide attacks carried out by “fidayeen” squads against Indian establishments have worsened India’s bitter relations with its neighbour and rival, Pakistan. It has been several years since the Kashmiri rebels began “fidayeen” attacks. Such attacks are extremely difficult to prevent as attackers intend to kill and get killed, they have nothing to lose. In January last year, two local rebels carried out a similar raid at a military base in the same village at Lethpora, which was claimed by the JeM.

Districts in the southern Kashmir region have remained restive since the killing of the young rebel commander Burhan Wani in 2016. Anti-India sentiment runs deep in the Indian state of Kashmir, which is on be of the world’s most militarized regions. Most residents in that region support the rebels and separatists in their fight against the Indian security forces.

Rebel groups have been fighting for India-administered Kashmir, since 1989, to either become independent or merge with Pakistan. Out of the three wars between India and Pakistan, two have been fought over Kashmir.

The Indian Government has been actively pursuing the terrorist groups behind such cowardly attacks. The Indian military is potent, but better intelligence can save men on the battleground. Such fundamentalism can only bring chaos and destruction. There is an urgent need for a way to bring this conflict under control, punish the guilty and restore peace in this, otherwise picturesque region.

WHY ICOGNATIVE?

A Massachusetts based company namedBrainwave Science has a technology to offer which can help bring the Kashmir Conflict under control. The insurgent groups need to be identified, their bases located and their members punished. For this, the Indian Government needs to have a tool which can gather intelligence like never before. Brainwave Science has developed and markets the iCognativetool. It is one of a kind of technology which has revolutionized forensic science. It is used by agencies across the globe to screen suspects and gather intelligence in a cost-effective and reliable manner. Once a suspect is arrested and an investigation has been carried out in a case, then iCognative test can be administered to the suspect to detect if he or she is aware of crime-related information or not. iCognative is a computerized test and the results are declared as soon as the 45-minute test is over. Using this cutting-edge technology, the investigators can quickly find out which suspect is likely to be the perpetrator and can thus focus their time and energy on the right person.

Moreover, iCognative is a technology which can help understand the position and rank of the arrested person in his or her criminal/terrorist organization. This information is priceless as it helps decipher the hierarchy of that organization. Moreover, high-value individuals amongst the arrested can be discovered by using iCognative.

There are popular techniques like DNA, fingerprinting and polygraph (Lie-detector) tests. The drawback is that DNA and fingerprinting are time-consuming, and the samples/evidence is only uncovered in 1-2% of all cases. Moreover, polygraph tests are highly subjective, this means that if the same test subject is tested by two different polygraphists, then the results can be entirely different. At the same time, iCognative is centuries ahead as it is not only applicable in 85-90% of all cases, be it civil or criminal, but also that it is more than 99% accurate in its results. Incredibly, the results are reliable and there is an absence of any false-negatives or false-positives. This means that the law enforcement and counterterrorism agencies can be sure that if a person’s test-outcome says ‘information absent’ then he or she has highly likely to know nothing about the crime. Similarly, if the outcome says, ‘information present’, then they can confidently continue interrogating him or her and consider him a likely suspect. iCognative requires simple hardware for conducting the test. It includes a specialized headset which measures brain responses to crime-related images, words, or phrases (also called stimuli) and relays it to the computer where they are instantaneously analyzed. It is easy to deploy and even easier to learn to operate. It is highly customizable, both in terms of language and functionality. There is no need for the use of torture or coercion to conduct a iCognative test.

The security forces must arrest suspected JeM members in this case of terrorism. Also, they must investigate. Once done, the suspects can be made to undergo the iCognative test. The stimuli which must be used for these tests can be details of JeM, Anti-India propaganda material, insignia, names and pictures of their commanders to detect if the suspect belongs to any of these groups, confidential details of recent terror attacks to detect their involvement, pictures of known militants in a specific terror organization to find out the rank and position of the suspect, etc.

The Intelligence agencies are faced with a huge challenge of state-wide terrorism and a threat of a Civil war. They can benefit hugely by using the modern technology offered by Brainwave Science to gain intel and help curb militancy in Kashmir.